New secure smartphone for government submitted for FCC approval.

Update: Boeing has officially announced details of the Black handset. See the specs of the device here.

Earlier this month, Boeing submitted details about its new high-end smartphone, simply called "Black," to the FCC, along with a request that most of those details be kept secret. The Black (FCC ID H8V-BLK) is an Android phone with a feature for a very specific demographic: it will self-destruct if tampered with.

In a letter to the FCC, Boeing’s counsel Bruce Olcott wrote, “Boeing’s Black phone will be sold primarily to government agencies and companies engaged in contractual activities with those agencies that are related to defense and homeland security. The device will be marketed and sold in a manner such that low-level technical and operational information about the product will not be provided to the general public.”

As part of the justification for requesting secrecy, Olcott added that the phone is a “sealed device” that will be sold with an end-user nondisclosure agreement. “There are no serviceable parts on Boeing’s Black phone, and any attempted servicing or replacing of parts would destroy the product,” Olcott wrote. “Any attempt to break open the casing of the device would trigger functions that would delete the data and software contained within the device and make the device inoperable.”

The FCC filing did reveal a few things about the Black, however. We know that it has dual SIM cards and is capable of operating on GSM, WCDMA, and LTE networks. It also has a removable battery. It will also have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities (probably to support a smart card-reading sled for PKI logins), as well as an HDMI port, according to a report on Myce.

The Black is a secure device intended for handling sensitive data, so it's not really made to compete with BlackBerry's more standard smartphones for a big chunk of the Department of Defense and the government's general smartphone needs. That's territory for Samsung's KNOX technology. Instead, Black will likely be positioned as a contender for the Defense Information Systems Agency’s DoD Mobile Classified Capabilities program, which will provide mobile access to the DOD’s SIPRNET classified network and e-mail. It may also be intended as a new offering for the DOD's SME-PED program—which is currently supported by a pair of Windows CE secure handsets from General Dynamics and L3 Communications. And it could potentially be a replacement for the “Obamaberry”—the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition with custom crypto used by the president and national leadership.

The idea of state business being conducted on an 8830 makes me cringe every time I'm reminded of it. Crypto or no crypto, that thing has not aged well, both in terms of obsolescence and in its tendency to mechanical failures.

Is it actually going to destruct, or just do an irreversible wipe to prevent an adversary from accessing data on it? I'd assume the latter.

It'd probably work similarly to the Ironkey storage device where all data is encrypted and if tampering is detected the storage is wiped and the encryption chip erases itself.

Although it's a phone so it has a bunch of SoCs and multiple OSes (as I learned recently from another Ars comment thread) with their own memory and storage arrangements. So I'm guessing its a more complicated system than the ironkey.

Is it actually going to destruct, or just do an irreversible wipe to prevent an adversary from accessing data on it? I'd assume the latter.

The problem with devices actually exploding or melting is the liability for property damage and/or bodily harm such a device may cause (disappointing for those of us who love pyrotechnics). Even if it's just a chip frying itself, it has to be very very carefully controlled.

I suspect that at least of these new "privacy" focused smartphones coming out is actually a NSA or FBI honeypot.

To call it a honeypot would imply (in my mind anyway) that the whole product is designed, built, marketed, and sold by one of those agencies for the sole purpose of tracking individuals who don't want to be tracked, as opposed to by a company that's trying to make a profit. I really doubt that.

What I wouldn't doubt is that the phones are legitimate products made by companies that honestly think they can turn a profit on them, but the NSA has a backdoor anyway.

Given Boeing doesn't really have manufacturing to make this kind of device. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a Taiwanese company like Foxconn make it in their Mexican factories. I would be very suprised if this was going to be made in the USA. Certainly the components will all be foreign made, most likely in Red China.

Given Boeing doesn't really have manufacturing to make this kind of device. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a Taiwanese company like Foxconn make it in their Mexican factories. I would be very suprised if this was going to be made in the USA. Certainly the components will all be foreign made, most likely in Red China.

Not necessarily. IBM fabs chips for government usage and there are other commercial fabs who do small runs for university research groups and startups. For small volumes and cost-no-object production, chip manufacturing can be done in the US.

Somehow, I doubt that's going to be much of an obstacle against a well-funded state actor.

Or even a slightly determined individual. To start with, it would need an ionising radiation detector to prevent an industrial X-ray machine being used to image any mechanical intrusion detection devices. Then some sort of chemical detector to prevent the casing being removes by dissolving rather than by removing fasteners or brute force. And any passive (or active) light sensing components would have to be more sensitive than low-light imaging systems.

I suspect that at least of these new "privacy" focused smartphones coming out is actually a NSA or FBI honeypot.

To call it a honeypot would imply (in my mind anyway) that the whole product is designed, built, marketed, and sold by one of those agencies for the sole purpose of tracking individuals who don't want to be tracked, as opposed to by a company that's trying to make a profit. I really doubt that.

What I wouldn't doubt is that the phones are legitimate products made by companies that honestly think they can turn a profit on them, but the NSA has a backdoor anyway.

It's not as far-fetched as you think. The NSA/FBI could approach Company A with the business idea. Company A sees a market opportunity to play both sides of the field. Sell a smartphone that promises security at a much higher rate while taking millions from the NSA for access to their primed spy machine.

Company A, not the NSA/FBI, would do all the heavy lifting to set the product up with the expectation of high profits fueling the effort.